Book description
Since the end of the nineteenth century, city planners have aspired
not only to improve the physical living conditions of urban residents
but to strengthen civic ties through better design of built
environments. From Ebenezer Howard and his vision for garden cities to
today's New Urbanists, these visionaries have sought to deepen
civitas, or the shared community of citizens.
In Civitas by Design, historian Howard Gillette, Jr.,
takes a critical look at this planning tradition, examining a wide
range of environmental interventions and their consequences over the
course of the twentieth century. As American reform efforts moved from
progressive idealism through the era of government urban renewal
programs to the rise of faith in markets, planners attempted to
cultivate community in places such as Forest Hills Gardens in Queens,
New York; Celebration, Florida; and the post-Katrina Gulf Coast. Key
figures-including critics Lewis Mumford and Oscar Newman, entrepreneur
James Rouse, and housing reformer Catherine Bauer-introduced concepts
such as neighborhood units, pedestrian shopping malls, and planned
communities that were implemented on a national scale. Many of the
buildings, landscapes, and infrastructures that planners envisioned
still remain, but frequently these physical designs have proven
insufficient to sustain the ideals they represented. Will contemporary
urbanists' efforts to join social justice with environmentalism
generate better results? Gillette places the work of reformers and
designers in the context of their times, providing a careful analysis
of the major ideas and trends in urban planning for current and future
policy makers.
"Howard Gillette provides a masterful survey of major themes
in American planning and social thought over the course of the
twentieth century on the proper design and function of urban areas.
The title reflects the longstanding belief that improved design will
create not simply better buildings and public spaces but truly engaged
citizens."-David Schuyler, author of From Garden City to Green
City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard
Howard Gillette, Jr., is Professor of History at Rutgers University
and the author of Camden After the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a
Post-Industrial City and Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and
the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D. C. Both books are
available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. A podcast interview
of Howard Gillette is available on the Penn Press podcast page.
